Interdependence
by Kinjiru
Summary: It was for each other that they strove to be stronger. Because they were nakama. Also, perhaps, because no one else had any idea how to do his job on board. But most of all, it was because no one messed with the Heart Pirates.


He woke up in a dump, feeling like trash. Though he stared up a vivid blue mid-morning sky and the crashing of waves filled his ears, Shachi could neither see nor hear them. In his mind was only one question: what was he doing there?

He couldn't remember past the pounding of his head. It was too busy comprehending the signals of pain his nerves reported. Unable to get his answer, the Heart Pirate let himself drown in his brain's assessment.

His joints felt rigid and his limbs stiff and throbbing, with his midsection burning the most. He couldn't open his right eye properly. Bringing a hand to his face, he found it tender to the touch. The arm fell back to his side with a muffled thump, and Shachi immediately regretting setting it down so carelessly.

On a better note, thinking was helping ease the pain at the back of his head. It was with much chagrin that he found his headache was not the familiar alcohol-induced hangover he first thought it to be, but at the very least, nothing felt broken.

Shachi scowled and looked about him. He was – quite truthfully – in a large, old, wooden shipping crate, almost three quarters filled with garbage. His booted feet hung over the edge from the knees down, as if to announce to anyone who saw them that some sorry excuse of a man was in the trash. His clothes were ripped in a number of places, too, though mostly at the seams, and a broken pair of sunglasses lay in a pile on his chest. Now wasn't that just peachy?

With many a grunt of discomfort, the Heart Pirate tried to sit himself up, throwing his weight to his knees (which earned him a none too amused reminder from his hurting abdominal muscles) before settling with just propping himself up on his elbows.

Wood planks continued to creak for a short while after his attempts, backgrounded by the constant rhythm of the waves against the port riprap. The young man shut his eyes from the dizziness the effort brought with it. Sparks danced in the darkness behind his lids, and in it, fragments of the night before slowly came to him.

He had gone out to town for some fun. He wanted a drink, and maybe a girl if his luck could manage it. In the end, he got neither.

Long before he even found the tavern, he was sidetracked by a rowdy group crowded around a newspaper. They jabbed at a face printed on a page, laughing and making snide remarks. The Heart Pirate normally paid little mind to civilians, but from where he stood as he glanced their way – to see if they would be any trouble – he was just the right angle to make out exactly what it was they were scorning.

And what he saw got his blood boiling. Storming up to the group, he grabbed the guy laughing most obnoxiously by the collar of his shirt. He said nothing as the circle of men twisted his way, for by then, he had taken the opportunity to land the first blow.

Needless to say, he had been arrogant for assaulting such a large group, ending up beaten out of his senses and thrown in a dumpster. He was lucky they didn't do anything worse than return the punches and kicks he landed (and mind, they were many.) For sure, he had offended them, but they were simple, if not insufferable, young men; to them, he was nothing more than a troublemaker in need of a good beating. And beat him they did, although the reason they had done so was not impressed on the pirate. He attacked them for his own reasons, and the fact he had not done enough damage to send that message home was the worst blow on his pride yet.

Soon enough, Shachi's dizziness faded and he eased himself out of the crate. He brushed off the last bits of his shades that had not already fallen off, sighing at what a waste it was. He'd have to wait for the next time they got a hold of some cash to get a new one.

Turning to the portside street, the Heart Pirate started his slow and torturous walk back to the submarine, realizing in that moment under the shadows of the roofs sloping low over the alley, the sea shimmering like thousands of dancing lights in his eyes, that his hat was nowhere in sight.

+.+

"And what got into you fighting so many?" Trafalgar Law asked, and even without looking, he knew that his crewmate had looked away.

"It's m…m kinda r…r uh, well…It's kind of…"

The Heart Pirates doctor sighed at his mumbling. He wasn't too keen on hearing the answer, for whatever reason Shachi had decided to get so beat up for, he had lost in the end – an embarrassment in itself. Knowing his crewmate, it was probably for some unpremeditated cause too.

"Arms," he ordered instead, gesturing for the limbs to be raised. The man complied and Law, muttering under his breath, leaned in to attend to the swollen and bruise-rimmed cuts on his midsection. Even after Shachi was cleaned of grime, the dark patches of boot prints – all too vivid against the pale skin – refused to go away, telling they doctor that they were more subcutaneous than he first believed. But the bruises would heal without much assistance in his part, so long as they were not aggravated.

Despite his annoyance with his crewmate, however, as his captain, Law couldn't help but feel particularly vindictive knowing that someone dared raise a hand against his own, regardless of who had started the fight. Especially since he found the man almost on his hands and knees struggling to return to their ship.

"How'd you know?" The question came out slow and hushed. Law hadn't realized his patient gone quiet as he moodily attended to him.

"You do fine one-on-one, don't you?" he drawled as he wound another layer of bandaging over the cuts around the other's stomach. Law reached an arm around him to pass the roll of elastic from one hand to the other before continuing both his work and tirade. "And you're good up to three-on-one against the untrained. Don't you trust your own captain to know your limits?"

"Sorry, captain. I…"

Law scowled at the man, who by then had turned to look at him. His paltering didn't earn him the doctor's sympathies – gaining him the opposite if any – for as much as he dislike the insubordination, he wasn't willing to put up with his drama either.

"If you want to keep it to yourself so badly–"

"They were making fun of you. I…I couldn't help it."

The man paused in his work and looked Shachi in the eye, searching his earnest face. His conviction was true; the only shame in his features was for his loss, none for his reasons. The Heart Pirates captain rolled his eyes and fixed the last of the bandages.

"You should know better," he said. "Words are just words. Nothing more."

Shachi scowled but said nothing, pulling a shirt over himself to avoid answering. Gray eyes watched him fidget in discomfort over the unfavorable reaction, and creased brows relaxed as their owner smirked at the unhappy man's pouting. Law reached for his hat and stepped away from the hospital bed.

"Ah, whatever. Have Penguin help you with the ice packs," the doctor said, easing the practiced reassuring tone of a doctor into his voice. "I'm sure you guys know the drill."

"Cold compress up to fifteen minutes at a time, right?"

The pirate nodded and put on his hat. "I'll be in town. You know where the painkillers are if you need them," he bid. Jokingly, he also added, "Anything you want from the market? Apart from a new set of shades?"

His crewmate looked up at him, expression less glum and more hopeful. "A new hat? Those guys took mine."

Law regarded him for one quiet moment, eyes wide and unblinking, before taking his nodachi and going his way.

+.+

"You're so dumb, man."

It was Penguin's third return to his injured crewmate, with each succeeding visit finding him an increasingly sulky patient. While he didn't mind attending to him, he was about done with his moping; he could only listen so many times on how the fight should have gone or their captain's thoughts over the loss before he got tired of sympathizing. Which was why, as he stood by him holding an ice pack to his crewmate's chest, he couldn't help but throw in an offhanded teasing remark to change the air of the conversation.

Shachi glared at him with one good eye, the other being presently covered with a pack of cool gel. "Well what would you have done?" he sneered.

"I dunno, win?"

"Ha. Aren't you the funny guy?"

"And aren't you the sourpuss?"

Shachi continued to glare, holding it unchanged for five seconds, before gritting his teeth and swinging at Penguin with a wrapped ice block in hand. The other man easily caught him by the wrist.

"Hey, no fighting," he said, humor never leaving his voice. He tightened his grip for a second then released his hold. "Not that you were gonna hit anything, what with that dead giveaway–"

"Don't lecture me. I'm injured, you know." Despite his words betraying an attempt to make light of the situation, the retort's tone was closer to a jibe than a joke.

"Don't be a scapegoat, Shachi. That's just like losing twice over."

"I'm not. You're just annoying."

"Am I?" Penguin grinned and leaned in close. With a quick sweep, he reached out with his free hand to tap the irate man's temple with the tips of his fingers.

Whatever Shachi had in his hands hit the floor a second later. The injured pirate pushed off the bed and swung at his crewmate. The latter drew an arm into the punch's arc, countering the attack with a jam of the bone of his forearm against Shachi's wrist. As his crewmate fell back, Penguin grabbed him squarely by the elbow. The first mate pushed lightly at him with the ice pack he still held to his chest.

The injured Heart Pirate's uncompromised eye shot wide open. He clamped his hand onto the first mate's sleeve and swung away from him, but Penguin had foreseen the attempt. The latter offered no resistance, which sent them both tumbling down. The grip on his clothes faltered when Shachi's back met the floor, in which time, Penguin took the opportunity to roll forward and break his own fall.

He was up in a squat in a moment, and twisting around to put his crewmate in his field of vision, saw the other man roll to a side then get his feet under him. In the split second Shachi held the crouch, Penguin dodged to a side. Had he been any slower, the lunge that came for him soon after would have had him pinned to the floor with the wind knocked out of him.

Muscle memory kicked in, and with reflexes gained from hundreds – no, thousands – of hours of training and fighting, Penguin tipped his center of gravity opposite his crewmate's charge. Arms flew towards the injured man and grabbed onto him, one hand clamped over his shoulder and the other closed around a length of his waistband. The Heart Pirates' momentum pulled against each until they were neutralized; Penguin, having the better footing, pulled them both to their feet, with Shachi's back turned to him.

However, the smaller man wasn't defeated just yet. Kicking at his shins and jabbing elbows at his stomach, Shachi forced him backwards, but the first mate kept his hold. One step, two steps, three – and suddenly, his boot met unfamiliar and decidedly unstable flooring.

Shachi lifted a leg for another attack and Penguin instinctively shifted away from it, only to rest his weight on his wobbly footing. His attacker's next determined yell ended in a yelp as they fell back down. A soggy square of cloth shot to the wall, plastering itself there with a stray ice cube or two shooting after it; the rest of the forgotten ice pack the first mate felt under his knee.

For a few seconds, the pair was still, breathing deeply and trying to make heads of their situation. Shachi was the first to make a sound, snickering at first before unabashedly laughing out loud. Penguin rolled him off of himself, and even then his shoulders shook in his mirth.

"That…that lunge back there…" the first mate started when he found his voice again, "that was pretty fast."

The man addressed grinned. "You are one annoying son of a–"

"I take it you two are done?" a blasé silvery voice purred before he could finish. "Last I checked, bed rest entailed actually staying in bed."

The pirates looked to its owner, Penguin sitting up and Shachi on his elbows. Trafalgar Law looked down at them from the door, leaning against the frame. He smirked through a busted lip whilst his eyes glimmered with mischief under bleeding brows. Both men gaped at him, but it was not his sudden appearance that struck them the most: from the fur of his hat to the leather of his shoes, blood was dripping off of him.

"Captain!"

Law held up a hand to halt their approach when both jumped to their feet. One purposeful step after another, he walked up to them till he stood before his injured crewmate.

"Captain, you're…" Shachi's eyes were trained on the crimson splatters staining the Jolly Roger printed on the Surgeon of Death's shirt.

"Hm? Oh that. It's not mine. More importantly–" He reached behind him and retrieved something from his back pocket. The item soon found itself on the smaller man's head, with Law patting it down to fix it there. As he pulled his hand away, he met his crewmate's wide-eyed gaze.

"I don't really care for what people say or think," the Heart Pirates' captain answered his unspoken question. "But we're pirates. We steal from people, not the other way around. Now Penguin–" Gesturing to his side, he turned to his other present crewmate. "Help me with this. This cut feels deep."

Penguin sprang to action and helped him to the nearest seat. Shachi strode to the supply closet, intent on readying whatever was needed to patch up his captain.

* * *

_A/N: Ah, I hope they're not too out-of-character. Especially mood-swing Shachi over here..._

_Please let me know what you think about the fight scene. :) I love imagining them and would really love to be able to write them well, so if my dear readers could give me their insight, it would be very grateful._

_But most of all, I hope this fic was enjoyable to read._

_EDIT: [9-9-13]_

_Thank you for all the feedback from everyone who reviewed. :) I've rewritten the fight scene and fixed some awkward parts. I hope it reads better now. _

_Also, a link to the cover art can be found on my profile._


End file.
